"Unawares" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the plain for the eastern entrance of the valley. We reached the canon about two hours before day. Everything turned out as we had anticipated. There was an outpost of five Indians at the end of the pass, but we had stolen upon them unawares, and they were captured without the necessity of our firing ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... pitiful display of vanity. The gale had ministered to a heroism as spurious as its own pretence of terror. He felt angry with the brutal tumult of earth and sky for taking him unawares and checking unfairly a generous readiness for narrow escapes. Otherwise he was rather glad he had not gone into the cutter, since a lower achievement had served the turn. He had enlarged his knowledge more than those who had done the work. When all men flinched, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... a trick to strip him, and take him unawares when he should have laid aside his dirk. ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... and goes and finds Gunnhillda, for she was a little way off at a feast, and Gudred, her son, with her. Augmund told Gunnhillda what Soti meant to do, and she begged Gudred to take his life. So Gudred set off at once, and came unawares on Soti, and made them lead up the country, and hang him there. But the goods he took, and brought them to his mother, and she got men to carry them all down to the King's Crag, and after that she ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... the vice of avarice, and every point and illustration are taken from Marlborough's life with such telling application that Marlborough himself must have taken thought as he read it. "No man," Swift finely concludes, "of true valour and true understanding, upon whom this vice has stolen unawares; when he is convinced he is guilty, will suffer it to remain ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... been short and sudden outside. The two soldiers of Santerne had been taken completely unawares, and the three young lieutenants of the Scarlet Pimpernel had fallen on them with such vigour that they had hardly had time to utter a cry ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... skin, I pray thee," she cried, "for if the sun came upon me unawares I should crumble into dust before thine eyes, and that moment would a curse fall upon you. I am happy as I am; the sea and those who dwell therein are good to me,—give me the skin, I beseech thee, that I may return whence I came, and thereby ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... of the River Uda we should sprinkle the burning charcoal, and suddenly take them unawares; when they cannot fail to be routed." The emperor approved this plan, and sent out the feebler troops toward the enemy, who, thinking that a powerful force was approaching, awaited them with all their power. Now up to this time, whenever the imperial army attacked, they invariably ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... the British Peerage. As Farmer Hoggins shrewdly concluded, his travel-stained guest was at least a gentleman. His voice and bearing proclaimed that fact. But the farmer little suspected the true rank of the man he was thus "entertaining unawares," or all that was to come from his good-hearted hospitality to a stranger who was so affable and ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... past and his solemn promises and hopes for the future were potent enough to save him from all such allurements. For him their doors stood open in vain. The path of danger lay in another direction. He would have to be taken unawares. If betrayed at all, it must be, so to speak, in the house of a friend. The Delilah of "good society" must put caution and conscience to sleep and then rob ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... fairy-rings; but we find a great many pine-cones in the high grass... I tell Robert the old Welsh story of the man who went to sleep, unawares, inside a fairy-ring, and so disappeared for seven years, and would never eat or speak after his friends had delivered him ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... told with a touch of harsher cynicism than was heard in Galuppi's "chill" music of the vanished beauties of Venice. If we may by no means say that the glory of humanity has faded for Browning, yet its glory has become more fugitive and more extrinsic,—a "grace not theirs" brought by love "settling unawares" upon minds "level and low, burnt and bare" in themselves. And he dwells now on desolate and desert scenes with a new persistence, just as it was wild primitive nooks of the French coast which now became his chosen summer resorts ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... a solid truth, backed up by abundant and irreproachable evidence, presented under the strict rules of law and the solemn sanction of an oath, should be upset and shattered by a flimsy falsehood told by an unknown adventurer, heard unawares by a listening child, and denied a proper entrance into court. It was strange but it was very true. Yet in that ruin was involved one of the boldest schemes for legal plunder that was ever carried into ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... foot; indeed, he almost danced in the excess of his vexation. "Left them where they stood!" he echoed. "Body o' me! Where are your wits? Left them where they stood! And at any moment you might have been taken unawares as a consequence of this accusation being lodged against you by Richard or by Blake. Then the Cause ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... to reprove Matagoro, the latter waxed very wroth, and, being a ruffian, would have killed Yukiye on the spot; but he, old man as he was, was a skilful swordsman, so Matagoro, craven-like, determined to wait until he could attack him unawares. Little suspecting any treachery, Yukiye started to return home, and Matagoro, under the pretence of attending him to the door, came behind him with his sword drawn and cut him in the shoulder. The older man, turning round, drew and defended himself; but having received a severe wound ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... throwing these star shells was to keep No Man's Land lighted so as to be ready to repel our attack. They knew, of course, that our barrage was to be followed up with a charge, but they did not know at what hour it was to be launched. The star shells were thrown so that they could not be taken unawares in the dark. ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... injured any one. I had for a long time been aware that I had an unusual mesmeric or magnetic influence—call it what you will—over others. I cultivated that power in eye and hand, so that I was soon able to take any person at unawares whom I considered fit for my purpose, and subdue him or her completely to myself. Then after one or two failures I hit upon a method, which I perfected at length into entire simplicity, by which I was able to tap the nervous system and draw into myself as much as ever I needed of the abounding ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... our minds with the conceptions of these beings, we immediately aspire to hold communion with them. We represent to ourselves God, as "walking in the garden with us in the cool of the day," and teach ourselves "not to forget to entertain strangers, lest by so doing we should repel angels unawares." ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... strange to him to be there without Corydon. There were so many things to remind him of her—a sudden memory would catch him unawares, and stab him like a knife. There was the rocky headland where they had swam, and there was the pine-tree that the lightning had splintered, one day while they were standing near. When darkness came, and he was unpacking a few old things that they had left up in the country, his loneliness seemed ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... alone, conversing with himself, and marking the impression which nature had made on his own heart.—If, at this sacred moment, the idea of some departed friend, some tender recollection when the soul was most alive to tenderness, intruded unawares into his thoughts, the sorrow which it produced is artlessly, yet poetically ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... with idle prayers,— She will not hear thy call; She steals upon thee unawares, Or seeks thee not ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Thus, unawares, with vision wide, A steep hill once I saw, In faint dream lights, which ever hide Their fountain and ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... intact; for the family at the Castle has always taken the part of the bulls against all comers. Little does Urus know how superficial, how skin-deep, his loneliness has become—that he is really under tutelage unawares, and even surreptitiously helped to supplies of forage in seasons of dearth! Will his race linger on and outlive the race of Man when that biped has shelled and torpedoed and dynamited himself out of existence? And will they then fill the newest New Forest that will have covered ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... face to face with Armand, and gave a sudden little gasp of terror. It was not good these days to come on any loiterer unawares. ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... a treasure that fastens upon a man's mind. He will pray and blaspheme and still persevere, and will curse the day he ever heard of it, and will let his last hour come upon him unawares, still believing that he missed it only by a foot. He will see it every time he closes his eyes. He will never forget it till he is dead—and even then——Doctor, did you ever hear of the miserable gringos ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... one of the bloodiest scenes ever enacted on the western plains. The northern Indians of the Reserve together with a lot of wandering Shawnees, Delawares, and Kickapoos, many of them good-for-nothing or vicious, some Seminoles and Cherokees attacked Leeper unawares, killed him,[495] as also three white male ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... neck stabbed him again and again to the heart till the blade of the knife broke in it. Then he searched Montefiore's pockets, took his wallet, money, everything. But though he had taken the Italian unawares, and had done the deed with lucid mind and the quickness of a pickpocket, Montefiore had time to cry "Murder! Help!" in a shrill and piercing voice which was fit to rouse every sleeper in the neighborhood. His last sighs were given in ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... Darley's burying, and she tried to recall the very look of all the sad, earnest faces round the open grave—the whole scene, in fact; and let herself give way to the miserable regrets she had so often tried to control. Then she walked on, crying bitterly, almost unawares to herself; on through the high, bleak fields at the summit of the cliffs; fields bounded by loose stone fences, and far from all sight of the habitation of man. But, below, the sea rose and raged; it was high water at the highest tide, and the wind blew gustily ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... flaxen-moustached, blue-eyed Cavalier who had followed her in, and they would look one to another. "Tell you what it is," one of the village elders would say—just as they do in novels—voicing the thought of all, in a low, impressive tone: "There's such a thin' as entertaining barranets unawares—not to mention ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... matter off, as though I had not grasped his meaning. But I can stand this state of things no longer: it is driving me mad. When I am alone now I suddenly start with the feeling that some one is coming on me unawares. This afternoon, wishing to be alone and to think matters over, I took a walk about the Park, but the very trees seemed to be whispering about me, and before long I perceived that I was followed, that my movements were being dogged step by step. When I am ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... was over ground yellow and hard with dearth, until afternoon brought a footing of sifting sand heavy to travel in. He had plenty of time for thinking. His ease after the first snapping from his promise had changed to an eagerness to come unawares and catch the man in the steeple-hat. Till that there could be no proofs. Genesmere had along the road nearly emptied his second canteen of its brown-amber drink, wetting the beasts' tongues more than his own. ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... one of those moments in life when one is taken unawares. I think our common realization of the need of masking the reality of our encounter, the hasty search in our minds for some plausible face upon this meeting, must have been very obvious to the lady who observed us. Mary's first thought ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... shouted Schmitz, and with terrific force his cane came down on Roth's head. A second blow followed, almost as hard, which hit him on the cheek, so that the blood rushed out of the wound. The "Vice," taken unawares, made no motion to defend himself while Schmitz rained a shower of strokes on his body. Then at last Roth, wide awake now, felt for his sabre, partly drawing it from its scabbard; but Schmitz gave him no chance to use it. Like a famished wolf he seized his enemy by the throat, throttling ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage: To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... particular. Our late fellow citizen, Oliver Proudfute, hath been found dead in the High Street, close by the entrance into the wynd. It seemeth he was slain by a heavy blow with a short axe, dealt from behind and at unawares; and the act by which he fell can only be termed a deed of foul and forethought murder. So much for the crime. The criminal can only be indicated by circumstances. It is recorded in the protocol of the Reverend Sir Louis Lundin, that ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Mr Birdsey. If you have not been entertaining angels unawares, you have at least been giving a dinner to a celebrity. I told you I was sure I had seen this gentleman before. I have just remembered where, and when. This is Mr John Benyon, and I last saw him five years ago when I was a reporter ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... It is not enough for the public to know that everything is meant to be funny, that laughter is craved for every point in every 'turn.' A new kind of humour, however obvious and violent, might take the public unawares, and be received in silence. The public prefers always that the old well-tested and well-seasoned jokes be cracked for it. Or rather, not the same old jokes, but jokes on the same old subjects. The quality of the joke is ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... have taken Uncle Sidney unawares," said Alicia, when the caravan was toiling at a slow footpace along the rough wagon road paralleling the ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... and distressful discovery of every believer so soon as the first exaltation of belief is past, that one does not remain always in touch with God. At first it seems incredible that one should ever have any motive again that is not also God's motive. Then one finds oneself caught unawares by a base impulse. We discover that discontinuousness of our apparently homogeneous selves, the unincorporated and warring elements that seemed at first altogether absent from the synthesis of conversion. We are ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... of the angel choir itself whom these good people of the under-world had stumbled upon unawares! 'Meister Goerge,' lifting his lantern above his head, peered forward into the darkness, whilst the women clasped their hands in astonishment at the vision presented to their gaze. For there, seated before the spinet, was the white-robed ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... is my Custom, Sir, to pray an Hour or two in my Chamber, before I go to Bed; and having pray'd that drousy Slave asleep, the Thieves broke in upon us unawares, I ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... evidently hit the ape. Mad with pain, the animal dashed back through the hole in the chimney and attacked the doctor, who was probably taken entirely unawares, as he was looking through the glass to see what ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... might not know where it was. The Indians watched the army from the hills. At one point a warrior was seen stationed on a ridge to beat a drum and give signals to the rest; but the spies of the whites stole on him unawares, and shot him. The Hiawassee towns and all the stores of provisions they contained were destroyed, the work being finished on the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Emperor Alexius persuaded him to make mischief in Apulia. Henry fell into the trap. Robert Guiscard rushed back to defend his own territories, and now determined to carry out his obligations as a papal vassal. Henry was taken unawares and had to retire before the Normans, who forced their way into Rome and cruelly sacked and burnt it. Gregory was rescued, but life for him in Rome was no longer possible. The Romans had betrayed him to Henry, and now his allies had destroyed the city. He retired with ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... brilliant talk of this new friend, his views of life, his paradoxes, the axioms of Parisian Machiavelism,—all these things impressed Lucien unawares. Theoretically the poet knew that such thoughts were perilous; but he ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... in full chase after the goat antelope Gazella Arabica (Bennettii ?). They likewise steal round the herd of Antilope cervicapra and conceal themselves on different sides till an opportunity offers of seizing one of them unawares as they approach, while grazing, to one or other of their hidden assailants. On one occasion three wolves were seen to chase a herd of gazelle across a ravine in which two others were lying in wait. They succeeded in seizing a female gazelle, which was taken from them. They have frequently ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... few remaining days of his stay with us, that untutored, uninteresting, stupid man knew no lack of friendly courtesy at our hands. We were the better for his homely presence; unawares, he ministered unto us. When we knew that he came directly from speaking to the Master to speak to us, we felt that he was greater than we, and we remembered that it is written, "If any man serve me, him will my ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... jocund din. And, when it chanced That pauses of deep silence mock'd his skill, Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprize Has carried far into his heart the voice Of mountain torrents, or the visible scene Would enter unawares into his mind With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, receiv'd Into the bosom of the ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... instance, in order that knowledge might never be disseminated among the masses, I would appropriate to myself and my accomplices the monopoly of the sciences. I would hide them under the veil of a dead language and hieroglyphic writing; and, in order that no danger might take me unawares, I would be careful to invent some ceremony which day by day would give me access to the privacy ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... coming upon that which, however beautiful as poetry, out of higher respects they must reject and condemn—in which, too, they shall not fear that snares are being laid for them, to entangle them unawares in admiration for ought which is inconsistent with their faith and fealty to their ...
— MacMillan & Co.'s General Catalogue of Works in the Departments of History, Biography, Travels, and Belles Lettres, December, 1869 • Unknown
... Belisarius saw the enemy take up the pursuit, he opened the Flaminian Gate and sent his army out against the barbarians, who were thus taken unawares. Now it so happened that one of the Gothic camps was on the road near this gate, and in front of it there was a narrow passage between steep banks which was exceedingly difficult of access. And one of the barbarians, a man of splendid physique and clad in a corselet, when ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius
... eyes could not help him, his hands must. He had taken as few steps as possible in going about the room, lest he should tread upon the glasses unawares; and now, stepping gingerly, and sometimes merely pushing his feet along, he approached his writing-table and sat down before it. Then he began to feel. It was a tedious experiment and a hazardous one, and after a few moments ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... than sure that must have been Cooney himself. He'd missed his hat, and afraid that we might find it, he came creeping back to get into that bunch of brush, where he could hear every word we spoke. So he knew I was keeping his hat to prove who was in the crowd that tackled us unawares." ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... mother and her hungry cubs prowling about for a victim, or two fierce tigers battling for the favours of some sleek, striped, remorseless, bloodthirsty forest-fiend. In pursuit of their quarry, they steal noiselessly along, and love to make their spring unawares. They generally select some weaker member of a herd, and are chary of attacking a strong big-boned, horned animal. They sometimes 'catch a Tartar,' and instances are known of a buffalo not only withstanding the attack of a tiger successfully, but actually gaining the victory over ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... haven't," he blurted out. But he was choking with suffering, and this sickroom, into which he had suddenly entered unawares, so worked on his feelings that he burst out sobbing and buried his face in the bedclothes to smother the violence of his grief. Nana understood. Rose Mignon had most assuredly decided to send the letter. She let him weep for some moments, and he was shaken by convulsions so ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... stand in the way, is no less guilty of doing mischief, and bound to make satisfaction to them he woundeth, than if he had aimed at some one person: so if we sling our bad words at random, which may light unluckily, and defame somebody, we become slanderers unawares, and before we think on it. This practice hath not ever all the malice of the worst slander, but it worketh often the effects thereof; and therefore doth incur its guilt, and its punishment; especially it being commonly derived from ill-temper, or from bad habit, which we ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... grow older you will be able to read it with charity and understanding. Meantime keep the picture of the kindly big brother, and imagine him growing into a lovable and brave man, into a poet who wins our hearts almost unawares by the beauty of his poetry, his poetry which has been called "a beautiful dream of the future." Of some of it I shall now ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... never runs so thin The milk as when it leaves the milkman's tin; That every link the sausageman prepares Harbours some wandering Towser unawares. And Binns, the baker (whom a murrain seize!), Immune from fraud's accustomed penalties, Sells me a stuff compound of string and lead, And has the nerve to name the substance bread. But deafer far to the voice of conscience grown The type that cuts me off a pound of bone Wherefrom an ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various
... their interests to the larger landowners, whose interests must coincide with theirs; to the men of hereditary culture, of thoughtful habits, and wider experience, in whom they recognized a natural capacity to deal with problems that bewildered themselves, with events that had taken them utterly unawares. But, save at such times, and under the sobering influence of such lessons, equality, and not liberty, is the root of French Democracy. To equality, liberty ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... "here might have been a second Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey's matter.—Oh, thou real spawn of the red old dragon! for he too would have resisted the House's warrant, had we not taken him something at unawares.—Master Bridgenorth, you are a judicious magistrate, and a worthy servant of the state—I would we had many such sound Protestant justices. Shall I have this young fellow away with his parents—what think you?—or will ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... you say that their fate does not concern you, the lives of all those penned-up thousands are hostages for my own. Should you by chance find a means to stab me unawares, then to-night fire and sword would rage through the city of Zimboe. Nor do I fear the future, since I know well that you who think you hate me now, very soon will learn ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... him, 24th August, 1572, the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day took place. The murder of Coligny was completed; his son-in-law Teligny perished; all the chief Huguenots were slain; the slaughter spread to country towns; the Church and the civil power were at one, and the victims, taken at unawares, could make no resistance. The two Bourbons, Henri and the Prince de Conde, were spared; they bought their lives by a sudden conversion to Catholicism. The chief guilt of this great crime lies with Catherine de' Medici; for, though it is certain that she did not plan it long ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... house-carls and the thegns who joined him on the way, he hastened to their succour. On the way worse tidings reached him. The Earls had been defeated, and York had agreed to submit to the Norsemen. Harold hurried on the faster, and came upon the invaders unawares as they lay heedlessly on both sides of the Derwent at Stamford Bridge. Those on the western side, unprepared as they were, were soon overpowered. One brave Norseman, like Horatius and his comrades in the Roman legend, kept the narrow bridge against ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... been sent to a relation's in the South. Her father would not mention her name, and his family and neighbours were particularly careful to say nothing about the girl who had gone. Sometimes Casely would think about his pet, but he spared words. Once a neighbour stepped in unawares, and found the strong man stretched with his face on the settle, and sobbing hard; but he sat up when he found he was not alone, spoke an oath or two, and ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... occasions, sacrificed its own inward satisfaction to outward peace. My brother and sister, who used very often to jar, are now so entirely one, and are so much together, (caballing was the word that dropt from my mother's lips, as if at unawares,) that she is very fearful of the consequences that may follow;—to my prejudice, perhaps, is her kind concern; since she sees that they behave to me every hour with more and more shyness and reserve: yet, would she but exert that authority which the superiority ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... being one of the signers of the petition he determined to revenge himself.(3) With this resolution he proceeded to the Director's house armed with a pistol, loaded and cocked, and a hanger by his side; coming unawares into the Director's room, he presents his pistol at him, saying, "What devilish lies art thou reporting of me?" but by the promptness of one of the bystanders, the shot was prevented, and he himself immediately confined. A ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... confused and nervous; a feeling of impotence began slyly, devilishly to assail him, and he frequently found himself far out at sea. The strange inactivity of the prince's cohorts, the significant friendliness of the duke, the everlasting fear that a sudden move might catch him unawares began to tell on his peace of mind. Both he and Turk watched like cats for the slightest move that might betray the intentions of the foe, but there was nothing, absolutely nothing. The house in which Courant found ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... town of Dyrrhachium, and here remained once more immoveable. Caesar felt himself now strong enough to give battle; but Pompeius declined it. On the other hand Caesar succeeded in deceiving his adversary and throwing himself unawares with his better marching troops, just as at Ilerda, between the enemy's camp and the fortress of Dyrrhachium on which it rested as a basis. The chain of the Graba Balkan, which stretching in a direction from east to west ends on the Adriatic in the narrow tongue of land at Dyrrhachium, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... us unawares, my dear mother. Chupin has promised not to lose sight of her. If she stirs from her shop, he will hasten here and throw a stone against ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... could see that the light in the sitting-room had been turned on. I rose softly from the bed and bolted both doors. If Louis were to make up his mind to return, it was better, after all, for him to discover that I had been deceiving him than to have him come upon me unawares! ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "—but he affected to himself not to know what it was for the indulgence of a little contumely: and the reward he had got was contumely upon his own head. But when he looked at Elinor's pale face, the eyes so much larger than they ought to be, with tears welling out unawares, dried up for a moment by indignation or quick hasty temper, the temper which made her sweeter words all the more sweet he had always thought—then rising again unawares under the heavy lids, the lips so ready to quiver, the pathetic lines ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... Augustin was still spied upon by the neighbouring Churches, who wanted him for their bishop. They would capture him on the first opportunity. The old Valerius, fearing his priest would be taken unawares, urged him to hide himself. But he knew by the very case of Augustin, forced into the priesthood in spite of himself, that the greatest precautions are useless against those determined to gain their ends by any means. It would be ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... pass. Another hour or more went by; no shade was to be obtained except at a distance, under the trees of the forest; and Adair considered that it would be dangerous to venture so far from the shore, as the natives might then have the opportunity of stealing on them unawares. They accordingly sat down on the beach watching the breakers, in the hopes, as the tide rose, that their violence might decrease, and an opening appear through which the boat might be forced. The rays of the sun struck down on their heads ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... with yoke, now one And now the other leading by a head. Through all the courses but the last that youth Ill-starred stood safely in an upright car. But at the last, slackening his left-hand rein, As his horse turned the goal, he unawares The pillar struck and broke his axle-tree. Out of the car he rolled, still in the reins Entangled, while his horses, as he fell, Rushed wildly through the middle of the course. The whole assembly, when they saw him fall, Raised ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... arose a sudden and riotous noise in the camp. It was not the mirth and song of jolly pirates a-pleasuring ashore but the ferocious tumult of men in conflict and taken unawares. Perched in the tree, Jack Cockrell listened all agog as the sounds rose and fell with the breeze which swayed the long gray moss that draped the branches. He heard a few pistol shots and then was startled to see a spurt of ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... Peter, 'there are no wild beasts to spring at you unawares. Do you remember poor Cranley, who was in Pitt's house at Eton? Did you ever hear how he was killed in his veranda ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... ejaculated John Westonhaugh. "And I was entertaining such a Sinbad unawares!" and he took another green pepper from the dish his ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... sounded in his ears with a terrible significance; he could hardly realize that he had spoken it. He had always meant to tell her, of course, but the moment had taken him unawares. His conscience, his inmost feeling, had found a voice apart from his volition. There was a little silence. At length she said in ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... received from another worker on the field, and their mutually forgetting to inquire into each other's church connections, so great was their interest in the tasks in hand. Afterwards, the Methodist brother learned that he had entertained a Baptist unawares—Selah. ...
— The American Missionary, October, 1890, Vol. XLIV., No. 10 • Various
... interviews were so completely accidental, neither of them thought anything of it; they drifted unawares into an intimacy at which every one smiled but themselves. It flattered Lord Chandos to see dukes and princes drawback when he came near the beautiful heiress, as though it were quite understood that he had the right to ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... the sky. While thus looking upwards, he unknowingly trod upon a Viper asleep just before his feet. The Viper, turning about, stung him, and falling into a swoon, the man said to himself, "Woe is me! that while I purposed to hunt another, I am myself fallen unawares into ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... received them with great pomp and blare Of bannered trumpets, on St. Peter's Square, Giving his benediction and embrace, Fervent, and full of apostolic grace. While with congratulations and with prayers He entertained the Angel unawares. Robert, the Jester, bursting through the crowd, Into their presence rushed, and cried aloud, "I am the King! Look and behold in me Robert, your brother, King of Sicily! This man who wears my semblance in your eyes, Is an imposter in a king's disguise. Do you not know me? Does no ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... humorous frame, he would seat himself at the bottom of the sea on one of the brain-corals, as if he were seated on a large paddock-stool, and then make faces at me, in order, if possible, to make me laugh under water. At first, when he took me unawares, he nearly succeeded, and I had to shoot to the surface in order to laugh; but afterwards I became aware of his intentions, and being naturally of a grave disposition, I had no difficulty in restraining myself. ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... the world is all I want. I don't know anything that pleased me in her more," he went on, "than the way that, on my finding her up there all alone, coming on her unawares and feeling greatly for her being so out of it, she knocked down my tall house of cards with her instant and cheerful allusion to the next young man. It was somehow so the note I needed—her staying at home ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... that you who understand for yourselves, and who hear us, your orators, telling you, that there is a design against you, and that the toils are closing round you—that you, I say, by always refusing to act at once, should be about to find (as I think you will) that you have exposed yourselves unawares to the utmost peril: so much more does the pleasure and ease of the moment weigh with you, than any advantage to be reaped ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... the distance could be seen smoke in two directions, evidence that vessels were not far away. Then, almost like an apparition, from the east came two of the speedy little ships, which act like spit-fires and lie so low in the water that they are able to creep up unawares. They do not give forth any smoke to warn an enemy, or indicate ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... of fact, they had come divided as to the truth of the report that there was a man on L'Etat—even then as to him being the man they sought. In any case, they had expected to take him unawares, and never dreamt of his being armed and on the watch ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... Heav'n before, Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense! 20 See Mystery to Mathematics fly! In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. Religion blushing veils her sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires. For public Flame, nor private, dares to shine; 25 Nor human Spark is left, nor Glimpse divine! Lo! thy dread Empire, CHAOS! is restor'd; Light dies before thy uncreating word; Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall, And universal Darkness ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... been taken unawares, and the Malay was in the water before he could think. But he drew his revolver, in which there yet remained two shots, and, stepping to the taffrail, watched for Zangorri ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... lead thither the legions lightly accoutred for plunder. Here a very numerous army of the enemy had posted themselves, secretly, at all the passes; and, as soon as they saw that the Romans had got into the defile, they rose up suddenly, with great clamour and tumult, and attacked them unawares. At first an event so unexpected caused some confusion, while they were taking their arms, and throwing the baggage into the centre; but, as fast as each had freed himself from his burden and fitted himself with arms, they assembled about the standards, from every side; and all, from ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... the fight was too engrossing as the monster now made a rush to escape down the river, now up again, and at last made so desperate a rush straight out as if to go across, that the party were taken unawares, and were jerked right forward, losing their footing and falling. Ned and Frank had to let go, to save themselves from being dragged into the river, and as they lay close to the edge, the rope passed over them, and Ned shouted, "Gone!" while Tim ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... and maid, all unafraid, 'Sat out' upon the stairs, No spectre dread, with feet of lead, Came past them unawares. I know not why, but alway I Have found that it is so, That when the glum Researchers come The brutes ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... improvement, but entirely to her own superior method of teaching. When she found that Caroline, unskilled in routine, had a knowledge of her own, desultory but varied, the discovery caused her no surprise, for she still imagined that from her conversation had the girl unawares gleaned these treasures. She thought it even when forced to feel that her pupil knew much on subjects whereof she knew little. The idea was not logical, but Hortense ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the Wullie, and determined after that evening's work was done to preserve it for copying. King log, however, interfered with my well-meant intentions. A stick of pine by and by feloniously shot round a corner of rock unawares, and ere I could recover the cast the fly was embedded in the butt of it, and there was a quick smash. In what remote part of the earth will the Wullie be next found—or will it become the adornment of a permanent waterlog without leaving the river ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... returned Mauleverer, thinking he had stumbled unawares on some outrageous democrat, yet smiling as softly as usual; "you judge me harshly, Mr. Brandon! You must do me more justice, and you can only do that ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... deserted, Wallace sprung from his tower upon the walls. At that moment De Valence opened one of the gates; and, at the head of a formidable body, charged the nearest Scots. A good soldier is never taken unawares, and Murray and Graham were prepared to receive him. Furiously driving him to a retrograde motion, they forced him back into the town. But there all was confusion. Wallace, with his resolute followers, had already put Cressingham and his legions to flight; ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... Belfair wants a book Entirely different, which will sell and live; A striking book, yet not a startling book—The public blames originalities. You must not pump spring-water unawares Upon a gracious public full of nerves—Good things, not subtle—new, yet orthodox; As easy reading as the dog-eared page That's fingered by said public fifty years, Since first taught spelling by its grandmother, And yet a revelation in some sort: ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... fountains of her eyes. And thus she continued without ever raising her head from the mouth of the pitcher—until, at the end of two days, it was full within two inches of the top. But, being wearied with so much weeping, she was unawares overtaken by sleep, and was obliged to rest for an hour or so under ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... mean to dog me," said Harvey; "it will be an easy matter to do so, for they know every part of the wood, while I am a stranger. They are none too good to put me out of the way; it is such men who have no fear of the law, but they shall not take me unawares." ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... in those days is shown by the remark of the native historian, the author of the Tabakat-i-Akbari, 'that the feeling ran through the royal ranks that it was unmanly to fall upon an enemy unawares, and that they would wait till he was roused.' The trumpeters, therefore, were ordered to sound. The chief rebel leader, whose spies had informed him that fourteen days before the Emperor was at Agra, ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... soon as the glorious collection was exposed to the gaze of the world, its incontestable merit was at once recognized. Especially were the works of Velazquez, hitherto almost an unknown name in Europe, admired and appreciated. Ferdinand, finding he had done a clever thing unawares, began to put on airs and poser for a patron of art. The gallery was still further immensely enriched on the exclaustra-tion of the monasteries, by the hidden treasures of the Escorial, and other spoils of mortmain. And now, as a collection ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... to say something more, when a sneeze came upon him unawares, and a loud "Ah rash hoo!" awoke the ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... employ language which can have significance only for rational beings. We may hold that there is a rational plan of the universe which that seed is fulfilling. But if so, the plan does not belong to the seed. It is imposed from without, and the seed does its bidding unawares. ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... however, it ought not to be inferred that her statements can always be safely accepted without previous examination, or at any time be taken au pied de la lettre. Indeed, the writer of the Histoire de ma Vie reveals her character indirectly rather than directly, unawares rather than intentionally. This so-called "history" of her life contains some truth, although not all the truth; but it contains it implicitly, not explicitly. What strikes the observant reader of the four-volumed ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... a woman, drinking water from a jar at night, swallowed a snake unawares, which grew within her, till she was brought to the blessed Simeon, who commanded some of the water of the monastery to be given her; on which the serpent crawled out of her mouth, three cubits long, and burst ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... am glad to find you again capable of such lucid and exhaustive analysis. But how about what is called falling in love, when the wild ass has not been craving to have his void filled up at all, but is suddenly brought down unawares ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... ponder'd in her heart and said, "I will abide the coming of my lord, And I will tell him all their villany. My lord is weary with the fight before, And they will fall upon him unawares. I needs must disobey him for his good; How should I dare obey him to his harm? Needs must I speak, and tho' he kill me for it, I save a life dearer to me ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... names, such as would seem proper to the aunt, and, more than this, she took a careful survey of the house whenever she was coming home from school or from play, lest she might come upon her distinguished relative unawares. She had asked her grandmother more than once to tell her about this mysterious kinswoman, but Mrs. Thacher proved strangely uncommunicative, fearing if she answered one easy question it might involve ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... mockery. "And you shall tell a full story," he continued, "in all its details, so that Mistress Rosamund's last doubt shall vanish. You shall tell her how you lay in wait for him that evening in Godolphin Park; how you took him unawares, and...." ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... consternation, and informed us that a party of Esquimaux were pursuing the men whom we had sent to collect floats. The orders for embarking were instantly countermanded, and we went with a part of our men to their rescue. We soon met our people returning at a slow pace, and learned that they had come unawares upon the Esquimaux party, which consisted of six men, with their women and children, who were travelling towards the rapid with a considerable number of dogs carrying their baggage. The women hid themselves on the first alarm, ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... camp; and yet there is usually evidence in footprints of her having sustained a regular siege from the wild beasts; but she is so restless and eager for the safety of her young that no beast of prey can approach her unawares. This state of exaltation is of course exceptional; cattle are obliged in their ordinary course of life to spend a considerable part of the day with their heads buried in the grass, where they can neither see nor smell what is about them. A still larger part of their time must be spent in ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... upon Madge unawares. She was softly singing a plaintive little love song. I did not disturb her, and as I stole away again I said to myself, "God is good." A realization of that great truth had of late been growing upon ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... moment startled when he discovered in what manner I was employed; but, without further hesitation or compunction, taking me by the collar, he inflicted a blow as a punishment for my presumption. This was a little too much, so instantly springing at him, and taking him unawares, for a moment I actually beat my tyrant off, when Kennedy accidentally presenting himself at the door, at once ranged himself by my side. This made the pitiful fellow pause, and finding that, though so immeasurably his juniors, we were resolute, he prudently ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... by this time somewhat recovered from her consternation. "Well," said she, "what then? When you have come upon The McTavish unawares somewhere in the shrubbery, and asked her to marry you, and she has boxed ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the crisis of his life. If it was, it stole on him unawares. These great turning-days of life cast no shadow before, slip by unconsciously. Only a trifle, a little turn of the rudder, and the ship ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... there is always a brutality lurking in a man to leap out unawares. Yet why do I seek excuses, that have never yet found one? To be plain, I sprang fiercely up and after Joan, who had already started, and ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... contemptuously, with his face and the dog's within an inch of each other. "You would kill a poor cat, you infernal coward. You would fly at a starving beggar, you infernal coward. Anything that you can surprise unawares—anything that is afraid of your big body, and your wicked white teeth, and your slobbering, bloodthirsty mouth, is the thing you like to fly at. You could throttle me at this moment, you mean, miserable bully, and you daren't so much as look me in the face, because I'm not afraid of you. ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... unawares. Not that he dreaded the betrayal of his actual purpose. On the contrary, his reckless temper, chafing under her unexpected obduracy, now welcomed the opportunity of discarding the disinterested and ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... this parish, anyhow," replied Flanagan, unawares. The words, however, were scarcely out of his lips, when he felt that he had been indiscreet. He immediately added—"that is, if she is of this parish; but I didn't say she is. Maybe We'll have to thravel a bit to find her out, but come ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... grew louder and louder, but the noise was still muffled and soft. Their howling, however, was now loud and horrid. I suppose they cannot help howling; if they could, they would have too much power over poor creatures, coming upon them altogether at unawares; but as it is, they tell, whether they will or no, that they are upon the way. At length, dark as a torrent of pitch, out of the forest flowed a multitude of obscure things, and streamed away, black over the snow, in ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... complete success. Louis fully responded to the touch, and without a notion that he was showing himself to the best advantage, he yielded to the pleasure, and for once proved of what he was capable—revealing unawares an unusual amount of intelligence and observation, and great power of expression. Not even his aunt had ever seen him appear so much like a superior man, and the only alloy was his father's, ill-repressed dread lest he should fall on dangerous ground, and commit himself either to his ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... usance, it chanced one day that, as she was occupied in bewailing herself, there came up a pirate galley, unobserved of any, sailor or other, and taking them all at unawares, made off with her prize. Madam Beritola, having made an end of her diurnal lamentation, returned to the sea-shore, as she was used to do, to visit her children, but found none there; whereat she first marvelled and after, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... expression of my face which led her to add the last sentence. If I had had time to think, to summon my resolution, it is possible—yes, it is possible that I should have declared myself to be in a hurry and gone on alone. But she had caught me unawares and resolution was wanting. I announced that I was in no hurry at all, and ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... hath been from the beginning" are ominous and significant, for the traditional myths of Arcadia tell of the human sacrifices of Lycaon, and of men who, tasting the meat of a mixed sacrifice, put human flesh between their lips unawares.(2) This aspect of Greek religion, then, is almost on a level with the mysterious cannibal horrors of "Voodoo," as practised by the secret societies of negroes in Hayti. But concerning these things, as Pausanias might say, it is ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... treasures and my tower? Let all the days to come suffice for this Since all the past days made them what they are. You will not be impatient, my sweet lord. Some of the halls have long been locked and barred, And some have secret doors and hard to find Till suddenly you touch them unawares, And down a sable way runs silver light. We two will search together for the keys, But not to-day. Let us sit here to-day, Since all is yours and always ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale
... with misgiving. 'I have been taken unawares. Why, it is three parts brandy, to my ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... still the wine "Springs to the brim. Astonish'd, struck with dread, "To view the novel scene, the timid pair "Their hands upraise devoutly, and with prayers "Excuses utter for their homely treat, "At unawares requir'd. A lonely goose "They own'd, the watchman of their puny farm; "Him would the hosts, to their celestial guests "A sacred offering make, but swift of wing, "Their toiling chace with age retarded, long "He mock'd; at length the gods themselves ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... indifference! Low and high Drowsed over common joys and cares; The earth was still, but knew not why; The world was listening unawares. How calm a moment may precede One that shall thrill the world forever! To that still moment none would heed, Man's doom was linked, no more to sever, In ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... it—a waving, whirling, eddying, flamboyant confusion. A slight hill, a ploughed field, the streets of a town, create riotous, rolling, invisible streams and cataracts of air that catch the airman unawares, make him drop disconcertingly, try his nerves. With a powerful enough engine he climbs at once again, but these sudden downfalls are the least pleasant and most dangerous experience in aviation. They ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... on the northern coast, having drawn on my boots while I was gathering together my straggling plants and seaweeds, a white bear approached unawares the verge of the rock on which I stood. I wished to throw off my slippers and move off to an adjacent island, which I expected to reach over a rock whose head towered above the waves. With one foot I reached the rock; I stretched ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... elements In mutiny had from her axle torn The steadfast Earth. At last his sail-broad vans He spread for flight, and, in the surging smoke Uplifted, spurns the ground; thence many a league, As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets A vast vacuity. All unawares, Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb-down he drops Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance, The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud, Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... one day," replied she, "whilst my maid here combed my hair. When she had made an end of combing it, she plaited my tresses, and my beauty and grace pleased her; so she bent down to me and kissed my cheek. At that moment, he came in, unawares, and seeing her kiss my cheek, turned away in anger, vowing eternal separation and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... their Parian for a fort which they had built without my knowing anything of it, and sallied out thence against the farms to kill Spaniards and Indians. This they succeeded in doing by catching them unawares, and they inflicted very great cruelties even upon the Spanish women and upon their slaves, both male and female. Since this is true, as the very Chinese who have survived will declare, let the viceroy judge what could have been done, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... old person of Minety, Who purchased five hundred and ninety Large apples and pears, which he threw unawares At the heads ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... Lord," said the Dane, stooping down and speaking low. "The King is resolved to have you away; he has with him the best of his Franks, and has so taken us at unawares, that though I might yet rescue you from his hands, it would not be without a fierce struggle, wherein you might be harmed, and this castle and town certainly burnt, and wrested from us. A few weeks or months, and we shall have time to draw our force together, ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cried Davie, smiling through his tears; and stepping gingerly out of bed on the tips of his toes, lest he should meet a black cricket unawares, he skipped to the ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... suddenly brought back a panic fear on Lucy. What if Alice Manisty and the wind, which was already rising, should burst in upon her together? She looked down upon her night-gown and her bare feet. Well, at least she would not be taken quite unawares! She opened her cupboard and brought from it a white wrapper of a thin woollen stuff which she put on. She thrust her feet into her slippers, and so stood a moment listening, her long hair dropping about her. Nothing! She lay ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in the spare bedroom alone. The notes were utterly safe where they lay, and yet—astounding events might happen. Was it not a unique coincidence that on this very night and no other his aunt should fall ill, and that as a result Rachel should take him unawares at the worst moment of his dilemma? And further, could it be the actual fact, as he had been wildly guessing only a few minutes earlier, that his aunt had at last missed the notes? Could it be that it was this discovery which had upset ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... the pen unawares; but, ridiculous as it looks, it does actually express the position and vocation of the Federalists after the peace of 1815. Clay, Calhoun, Story, Adams, and the Republican majority in Congress, taught by the disasters of the war, as they supposed, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... of all peoples the discovery by the child of its parent forms the climax, or at least one of the chief features of the plot; and we have also those stories which tell how parents have been killed unwittingly by their own children, or children have been slain unawares by ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... with the shower-bath physically considered, so it is in regard to the moral douche, to bring my apparent digression to a pointed application. Properly taken, it nerves up the cerebral tissues; experienced unawares, at right angles to previous paths of thought and preparation, it reduces the patient to a temporary state of mental coma and bewilderment—as exemplified in my case on ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... and timid animal, and is often the prey of the lion—the fierce beast of prey taking it unawares, springing upon its back, and destroying it by breaking the cervical vertebrae with his powerful teeth. Sometimes, however, it is enabled to drive the lion off by kicking out against him with its heels, and tiring or discouraging ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... from going, and thus subject them to disappointment; consequently, I had to run the risk of finding them at home. If they were out I left my card, and tried again at another time. In calling on my people unawares, I found it depended upon myself to secure a cordial welcome, for I went in with a hearty salutation and asked them to allow me to sit down with them wherever they were, regardless of dress or ceremony, and soon I found myself perfectly at home ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... stroking the knight's cheek with her tender hand. Huldbrand tried to dismiss the fearful thoughts that still lurked in the background of his mind, persuading him that he was married to a fairy or to some malicious and mischievous being of the spirit world, only the single question half unawares escaped his lips: "My little Undine, tell me this one thing, what was it you said of spirits of the earth and of Kuhleborn, when the priest ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... to look upon the French inhabitants of Vincennes as all like M. Roussillon and Rene, but waiting for an opportunity to strike him unawares. He increased his military vigilance, ordered the town patrolled day and night, and forbade public gatherings of the citizens, while at the same time he forced them to furnish him ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... Major (you have guessed it was he) sprang up from his seat by the fountain. Fatal movement! At the sudden apparition the yellow horse shied violently, swerving more than halfway across the road; and its rider, looking backwards and taken at unawares, was shot out of his stirrups and flung shoulders-over-head in the dust, where he rolled sideways and lay still. His pursuers reined up with loud outcries of dismay. The Major advanced to the body, knelt beside it and turned it over. The man was bleeding from a cut in the head; ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Derry was granted a furlough, and started home. He sent no word ahead of him. He wanted to come upon them unawares. To catch the light that would be on Jean's face when she ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... because I am never puzzled."—"It has never been my way," he continues, "to set before myself a problem and puzzle out an answer. The conclusions at which I have from time to time arrived, have not been arrived at as solutions of questions raised; but have been arrived at unawares—each as the ultimate outcome of a body of thought which slowly grew from a germ. Some direct observation, or some fact met with in reading, would dwell with me; apparently because I had a sense of its significance. . . . A week afterwards, possibly, ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... her. Wasn't that what you told me to do? I was watching out the same as I've been doing this last week, the way Simpkins wouldn't come on her unawares, and me maybe somewhere else ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... put the house in its most shining order, to plan daily little special dishes, lest he come upon her unawares; to sit and sew upon her clothing, shifting and turning her patchwork materials until she had worked out clever combinations which conveyed small hint ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... out all right, as they thought, to take the place unawares. They'd been drinking at a flash kind of inn no great way off, and when they rode up to the house it seems they were all of 'em three sheets in the wind, and fit for any kind of villainy that came uppermost. As for Moran, he was a devil unchained. ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... in his own mind, been under the impression that he had attained perception, but when he was unawares and all of a sudden subjected to this question by Tai-yue, he soon found it beyond his power to give any ready answer. And when Pao-ch'ai furthermore came out with a religious disquisition, by way of illustration, and this on subjects, in all of which he ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Chang came upon her unawares when she was playing on the harp, with a touch full of passion. But when she saw him coming, she stopped playing. This ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... "constitutionals," without an object at the end or on the way. Keep your feet well shod and your eyes open. Bring home all the flowers and pretty wood-growths you can, and you may find that you have been entertaining angels unawares. Find out about them all you can yourself, and then (in spite of a previous tirade against botany, be it said) go to BIGELOW'S "PLANTS OF BOSTON" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... warning, his fist shot out. Owen apparently was not expecting such a cowardly blow, and hence must have been taken unawares. The consequence was that the blow landed on the side of his head when he tried instinctively to duck. It sounded horribly suggestive, and made Hugh's blood fairly boil as anger swept over him in a ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... earth, and the history of humanity. His lectures about the primitive peoples and primitive man were more interesting than the Arabian Nights. Liza, who was ecstatic over these stories, used to mimic Stepan Trofimovitch very funnily at home. He heard of this and once peeped in on her unawares. Liza, overcome with confusion, flung herself into his arms and shed tears; Stepan Trofimovitch wept too with delight. But Liza soon after went away, and only Dasha was left. When Dasha began to have other teachers, Stepan Trofimovitch gave up his lessons ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... had put her hands unawares on a vibrating chord. She was shaken with an intense thrill, and for the instant felt nothing else; then she knew her cheeks were glowing, and dared not look round, but stood still, distressed because she could not say ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... the gold, ordered some lunch to be brought, and about three o'clock I started for the Erie Railway station. Sometimes we entertain angels unawares. Captain Wellsman seems to have been a veritable angel. The simple, verbal message that I carried to his son served me as a letter of credit. Without it, I cannot now see what I could have done. Ten years ...
— The Supplies for the Confederate Army - How they were obtained in Europe and how paid for. • Caleb Huse
... some water snakes at play, he was charmed with their beauty and blessed them unawares—a sure sign that love for God's lower creatures was springing up in his heart. The next instant the spell began to break: the albatross fell from his neck into the sea and he could move his lips in prayer. He slept, and the Holy Mother ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... know whether I really felt that I wanted a change, change in my imagination, in my vision and in my mental attitude. I rather think that a change in the fundamental mood had already stolen over me unawares. I don't remember anything definite happening. With "The Mirror of the Sea" finished in the full consciousness that I had dealt honestly with myself and my readers in every line of that book, I gave myself up to a ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad |
